Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS 5/2/19: Winners and losers of the 2019 NFL Draft with Thor Nystrom of Rotoworld

Episode Date: May 2, 2019

The 2019 NFL Draft was filled with surprising and interesting storylines. Thor Nystrom runs through it all on today's episode while also diving into his biggest winners and losers. Hint: He believes the Arizona Cardinals made a mistake replacing Josh Rosen with Kyler Murray and believes the Miami Dolphins got a huge steal.Don't shoot the messenger here, but Thor was lower on the Indianapolis Colts' draft than most. He explains his reasoning while also going over why GM Chris Ballard has been so successful thus far.This was a very fun back-and-forth conversation all across the NFL with some Colts content sprinkled in throughout. Thor knows his stuff when it comes to college football over at Rotoworld with his big board going over 500 prospects deep. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Locked On Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Today's guest is Evan Sider. I'm joined by a very special guest today, Thor Nystrom of Roto World. How are you doing today, Thor? I'm doing great. Good to be here. Yeah, no problem at all. Appreciate you coming on today. And I wanted to get really started right away on the NFL Draft. Before we even dive into our discussion today, Thor, what was your overall thoughts and really your biggest takeaways from the 2019 NFL Draft?

Oh, man, what a fascinating draft you know coming into this year you know you go back a year we knew it was going to be an awesome front seven class and that it was going to be sorted down in the offensive skill positions and that proved to be true and that was even before we knew that you know guys like Quinn and Williams were gonna you, jump through the roof and stuff like that. And so it got even stronger. And that made for a very unpredictable draft, you know, as we got in there both on Thursday night and then getting into Friday. But, you know, just the fact that you had, you know, all these guys in the front seven, you know, that were these sort of consensus top 15 prospects. And then there was, you know, these varying opinions on, you know, the quarterback class, but then also even, you know, the wide receiver class. I mean, you know these varying opinions on you know the quarterback class but then also even you know the wide receiver class I mean you know for the longest time people

thought DK Metcalf was going to be the the top guy off the board a top 15 pick he was the last pick in the second round just all that kind of stuff Daniel Jones going six you know sort of shook up the board the NFL decided late that they were out on Haskins so he falls down the board a little bit just all kinds of craziness the Cardinalsinals, with Kingsbury deciding they wanted to go with Kyler and pulling the plug on the Josh Rosen era, in my opinion, gifting the Dolphins a quarterback outside of the first round on Friday. So yeah, it was just a crazy, unpredictable, and very entertaining NFL draft. Yeah, that defensive line class is pretty insane from this year.

But I wanted to ask you about those quarterbacks specifically. Did you ever imagine, if we're sitting here back in 2018, that a 5'10 quarterback and then a quarterback from Duke would be the first two quarterbacks taken in the 2019 draft? No, not at all. No, I mean, coming into this year, Kyler Murray, his TDI and T ratio was just about even for his career him to ascend to the number one pick in the draft was was stunning for Kyler to be an NFL draft pick at all was stunning coming you know coming into this year you know I mean it was just a done deal he was going to be a baseball player um so yeah so that that was pretty stunning the Daniel Jones thing that was very surprising too um If you told me before this season that Daniel Jones would get to six, that would not have surprised me nearly as much as the Kyler Murray stuff.

But if you told me in, say, early September or then, you know, as the season went on, that he would be Daniel Jones, broke his collarbone in early September, and then he came back and he couldn't throw deep. So I just thought, you know, at that point, he probably was going to be more of a latter end of of the first round type prospect I I rated him 32 overall uh but you kept hearing those whispers that a team in the top 15 had fallen in love with him there was only two candidates it was either the Giants or the Redskins um turned out to be

the Giants so yeah just crazy yeah with Jones especially, I had more along the lines of you did, Thor, I think in the late 20s, early 30s, as far as my own personal big board goes. But I want to hear your thoughts more on the quarterback situation in Arizona before we go into some more Colts discussion, overall draft talk. And it seems like you're a fan of Josh Rosen on the surface there. You think the Dolphins got a really good deal with the 62nd pick and the fifth-round pick for Josh Rosen.

What do you think about the Cardinals drafting Josh Rosen, trading up for him a year later or year before, and then moving out a year later for a guy like Kyler Murray? Who do you think won that trade on the surface? Oh, Dolphins by far. Yeah. What, what an absolute steal, you know, and, and just the, you know, the Dolphins are famously incompetent franchise for, for them to be sitting there waiting, you know,

it's like they were at the bottom of a window and something got dropped all right into their laps. And they were there at least to catch it, to catch that opportunity. So good on them. They benefited from a whole bunch of things here. They benefited from the Cardinals locking on to Kyler, which I think it's a mistake. You know, I know I'm in the minority here,

but I thought the Cardinals killed the rest of the draft. Every single pick, you know, from Byron Murphy through to the end to Caleb Wilson, Mr. Irrelevant, the UCLA tight end, he's going to do some stuff for Cliff, I think, as well. But you go back to that decision. You know, I know it's easy for people to fall in love with Kyler and stuff like that and get excited. And I understand all that stuff.

Kyler's super fun and everything like that. It's just, you know, with this roster that they have, would you rather have Josh Rosen and Quinn and Williams, you know, with the entire roster that they have, or would you rather have Kyler Murray and Andy Isabella? The Cardinals decided the latter, even though they have all these holes everywhere, you know, and the offensive line, I think, is going to become the most pressing one.

But, you know, if it's me, I prefer to stay the course with Rosen because you get to keep all the draft capital. You know, why not? Why not fix the offensive line here, guys? You know, why not trade down? I don't know. Why not trade down to, you know, eight, seven, eight, nine, ten, whatever. You know, pick up Jonah Williams or heck trade down a little bit later pick up Andre Diller pick up another offensive lineman we could have fixed that you know as well or you could have just taken whatever stud front seven guy you wanted at the top of the board you know whether it was Quinton or whether it was you know Josh Allen or Bosa or whoever you wanted to do um I would have stayed the course with that. You know, it's a value thing.

It's not about a prospect, you know, prospect apples to apples kind of thing. But I remain high on Rosen. I think, like I said, I think it's a steal of a deal for the Dolphins. I think there's multiple Pro Bowls in Josh Rosen's future. And I just, you know, for the public, it's just hilarious. I was giggling about this a couple years ago, and everyone was just, you know, after Jared Goff's first season was just calling them garbage and stuff. You know,

I'd watch this kid for, you know, three years at study Dykes, his air raid at Cal and all of a sudden he's garbage because he goes to the NFL. He's playing for this moron, Jeff Fisher. And this,

you know, on whatever the opposite word of innovative is, was their offensive staff, you know, and no supporting cast. And so Jared Goff struggles all of a sudden, Jared Goff's garbage. He shouldn't have even even been drafted he shouldn't be in the NFL like let's ship him to the XFL or whatever and that of course you know the circumstances change so

Jared Goff's performance changes which just makes sense you know there's the shifting of context it shifts truth well that's the same thing here with Rosen you know and but people have forgotten you know and it's the same thing all over again. Rosen stinks, Rosen stinks, Rosen stinks. I don't think so. He was not in a position to succeed last year. Understanding the context of his situation, understanding that that's not who he is. It was a contextual, circumstantial thing.

I just thought it was really sharp for the Dolphins to sort of swoop in there. What do you think, I guess, if we're looking ahead here, I think Josh Rosen's a great quarterback. I think he has the potential to be a really good quarterback. But if the Dolphins struggle next year and they have the chance to land Tua, do you think maybe Josh Rosen's back in the situation again or do you think the Dolphins should stay put with him if he impresses them a little bit?

Well, that would be hilarious. Yeah, I mean, if because the Dolphins' support is so bad and they struggle again, they're at the top of the board again. I, you know, and he gets traded. I don't know. It would be very funny, you know, from an unintentional comedy perspective. Um, but I would advocate next year if the Dolphins essentially got into the same situation as the Cardinals did this year, I would advocate for the same thing.

If two, you know, whether it's two or whether it's Justin Herbert, whatever guy ends as that consensus guy next year, fortunately for the teams that are going to be at the top of the board, you're going to have at least two, you know, guys up there that, you know, that are considered top five overall type quarterback prospects. So that draft pick is going to be worth quite a bit. So, you know, even more, I think than, than, than the Cardinals picked this year. So, you know, if the Dolph think, than the Cardinals picked this year. So, you know,

if the Dolphins were in that situation, I would advocate that they stay the course, just like I did with the Cardinals this year, and trade down, you know, accrue all that draft equity and address all your other holes or whatever. It's Josh Rosen is not the issue here. You know, Josh Rosen is in, for me, he's in. And this was even coming into the league. You know, this isn't like a hindsight thing or whatever. Coming into the league, he's like a Kirk Cousins type, right? Like he sort of exists in that phylum where he's not a top, you know,

6'7 type quarterback in the league. But, you know, you drop down to like that tier three or whatever. And people don't think that this is sexy or whatever. But you got to – there's 32 teams in the league. So you got to start 32 guys. So the 12th best starting quarterback in the NFL is very valuable. And guys like that, you know, the Rosens, the Cousins, stuff like that. You have to have a supporting cast around them. You know, you have to be able to protect them, number one,

because, you know, both those guys' game is not mobility. You know, and so that, number one, because, you know, both those guys' game is not mobility, you know, and so that's number one, and you also have to get them the receivers, you know, and that's what separates them, of course, from, you know, the Peyton Mannings and the Tom Brady's and the Drew Breeses that can sort of elevate the games of those around them, but as long as the pieces are fine around those guys, and hopefully, you know, I'm coming to you live from Minneapolis, and I'm a Vikings fan, so I'm sure hoping that they fix their – the Vikings fix their offensive line to help out Cousins. But I think those factors are more important for a guy like Rosen

than the issue being about Rosen himself. So I hope that whatever franchise he ends up on, hopefully it's the Dolphins going forward, that they will address those concerns instead of giving him absolutely no help and then claiming he's the problem. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I think Rosen was put in a really awful situation in Arizona. You had Mike McCoy as his office coordinator.

That didn't go well. And then you had Byron Lefkowitz there, too. I think it just needs stability. That's the main thing with Josh Rosen. I think he'll be a great quarterback after that. But, Thor, let's pivot over here to our winners and losers. We'll start with the winners here. Who do you think, as far as maybe your top five,

we'll just run through them here, who do you think are your biggest winners from the 2019 draft class yeah sure so uh you know anyone out there if you want to check out my draft grades on road world going over to the nfl draft section um i grade pretty hard um they they put out on the on twitter they were putting out you know the different aggregated grades of all the the national guys put out uh draft grades that i'm by far on the left because i i grade on a curve and basically what i'm trying to do is get my gpa my cumulative gpa to 2.5 i failed this year it was 2.51 but i i got pretty darn close but you know i'm i'm across the threshold you know with with the grades i give out apps i give out d minus give out Ds, all that kind of stuff. But starting at the top of this thing, I gave out two A-pluses this year

to the Titans and to the Redskins. I thought those two teams absolutely killed it pick by pick by pick by pick. The two As I gave out were to the Chargers and to the Jets. And then I gave out five A-minuses to the Cardinals, Browns, Jaguars, Patriots, and Eagles. So those would be my top classes. Yeah, that's really interesting about the Redskins there. Since the Colts were involved in their pick for Montez Sweat, were you surprised to see the Colts move back from 26, even though they accrued that 20-22? Would you have stayed on the board there if you're the Colts made a pick of Montez Sweat or somewhere else?

Yeah, I wasn't necessarily surprised because I thought that the Colts might be targeting that cornerback. And in fact, you know, I thought, you know, we might see Rock there in the first round. And I think, you know, the one thing I'll compliment the Colts on, you know, in this draft was reading the tea leaves on that one. And knowing that the cornerbacks were going to get, you know, sort of shoved down the board a little bit um they knew that they could move back and still get a kid that they liked so i i definitely applaud that move of of moving back now i love the montez sweat pick i i absolutely love that i think that that kid should have gotten top 15 now i don't know his medicals you know i i'm not privy to them i don't get access to them or whatever so i don't know how bad that heart condition is but assuming that it was cleared by my team doctors, you know, that he wasn't going to

be compromised, that this isn't something that could cut his career short, anything like that. He's absolutely a top 15 prospect for me. So yeah, just in terms of value, I love that. But from the Colts perspective, I, you know, I think that that's, you know, they were, they were very specifically wanted a specific position at the top there. And because of the way that the draft has fallen to them, they knew that they could hop back, accrue a bunch more draft equity, which is something that I'm a big fan of, you know, as is like we were talking about with like, you know, Kyler, Daniel Jones, you know, sort of for me is the opposite of is squandering of it. And in this case, it was, it was sort of, you know, getting what you wanted, but also getting draft equity out of it's squandering of it. In this case, it was sort of getting what you wanted, but also getting draft equity

out of it. Yeah, that's a really good point to bring up there. And I wanted to ask you this as far as your other winners go. With the AFC South, I feel like in the last two or three years, it's gotten really improved and it's one of the more underrated divisions in the NFL. How do you feel like the Titans and the Jaguars and the Texans did? Because I know your grades, your snap grades, then you get the Coltsts the lowest on the AFC South. How do you believe your other competition AFC South did? Yeah, so as far as the Titans go, I really, really like their class because they got

Jeffrey Simmons at 19. Jeffrey Simmons is a kid that for me, he's a top 10 talent in this class and darn near would have been top five if not for the ACL and the off-field incident. I talk a lot about the off-field incident in my column. There were some contextual things that I think people weren't taking into consideration about that, not to excuse it, but there are things that explain the background of that. And then the other thing people need to keep in mind is Jeffrey Simmons went to Mississippi State and was an absolute model citizen, model student, model everything. he was on the honor roll um he talked to kids you know he was on the leadership council all all this different stuff he you know is the

coaches rave about him his teammates rave about him all that kind of stuff and just a fabulously talented interior lineman so getting him at 19 I thought was huge AJ Brown at getting him in the second round at 51 overall, that's highway robbery. It's ridiculous that the NFL shoved him that far down the board. That kid can absolutely play. Even if A.J. Brown never develops again, he's worth the 51st pick, and he's probably going to keep developing.

And then Nate Davis. Nate Davis is a solid pick. I think that was just sort of hitting the single there um in the third round that's about where i had him amani hooker man another just absolute steal he in in my opinion should not have been available in the fourth round deandre walker was another guy i ranked him in the third round he ends up going in the in the fifth and then david long there the linebacker they got over west virginia i thought that was an inspired gamble too um as far as the the jaguars go they had a really interesting draft because they got to take

advantage of of circumstance and in circumstance this case can be read as dave gettleman you know draft overdrafting the heck out of mr daniel jones that shoved josh allen down the board and so they had to you know the jaguars had to take them for, for me, I had Josh Allen ranked number two overall. He's available at seven. You throw your other plans out. You know, I I'd been mocking the Jaguars, TJ Hawkinson since February, since way before it was popular to, you know, to, to mock TJ Hawkinson in the top 10. I thought that that was such a great fit, you know, for, for Hawkinson and also for the the organization you know I'm very very high in T.J. Hawkinson obviously um but when you know and Hawkinson was available there but there's no way you could have projected Josh Allen to be there I did all these mock draft exercises during the process Josh Allen didn't get the seven ones and so when when

he gets down there you got to say man we we love you teach but uh we're you know we we're just going to accept the gift that the universe is giving us and take Allen. And then, you know, another guy that was talked about in that slot was Juwan Taylor. He ends up falling down the board. You know, there's rumors of a potential injury, you know, stuff like that. But, you know, I don't think it's anything that's going to linger on, you know, in the future of his career or whatever so for him to drop into the 35th slot when some people were talking about him as a top 10 top 12 type pick um that was huge and then i you know i i like the rest of their draft as well and the last team we're going to talk about was

the texans right correct yeah yeah so i gave them and i think the jaguars are given a minus. I gave the, gave the Texans a B the Texans had an awesome draft except for in round one, which was very, very unfortunate for the Texans. And what was weird about it, just, just to give people some, some background, obviously the Texans came into this thing, badly needing offensive line. I mean, they sort of had the draft profile in the AFC that my Vikings did in the NFC where they were just it was earmarked you have to take an offensive lineman at least in round one you know if not you know with also with your second pick or whatever and so we all knew that

that's the way that they were they were looking and Andre Dillard would you know would it was the bonanza you know I thought for both the Vikings and for them, but the Vikings ended up getting Bradbury, which, you know, also a Bonanza scheme fit for them or whatever, but Dillard ends up falling way below where he should have fallen. And I had been told in the pre-draft process by someone close to Dillard that the Texans loved him. And, and this guy was telling me, he said, watch out for the Texans trading up, you know, to, to secure Dillard. And so I was like, Oh, okay. Well then Dillard falls down to the bikes. And obviously, you know, I secure Dillard. And so I was like, oh, okay.

Well, then Dillard falls down to the Vikes. And obviously, you know, I'm a huge, huge Dillard fan. And so I was hoping that they'd take it. They took Bradbury, which was, you know, entirely understandable. But then, you know, that means that Dillard starts falling down a little bit more. And so I'm like, man, the Texans are going to trade up. You know, my buddy, you know, they're obviously going to trade up. It's not even going to cost that much now.

And then Dillard gets one pick in front of him, and it's like, all right, Texans, do it now. You know, you only need to give up two late day three picks or whatever to get up a spot. Just do it. And they didn't. You know, the thing comes on like trade announcement, and I'm like, oh, man, the Texans did it. Good for them. And then it comes up that the Eagles did it, you know, and hopped them or whatever. And I just thought that that was so poorly done by the Texans. Dillard was right there for you. And all of you would have

had to do, I think, you know, looking at the trade that the Eagles, you know, ended up making for that pick. I think that the Texans only would have had to give up their fifth and sixth round picks to move up that one slot. But they get usurped by the Eagles and, you know, the Eagles hop them for Dillard. And then all of a sudden, you know, the Texans are like, oh, crap. You know, it was like with the Bengals last year when they wanted Frank Ragnow in the first round and they get, you know, the Lions unexpectedly take Ragnow right above them. And the Bengals are just like, oh, crap. What do we do? What do we do? What do we do? OK, who's the next who's the next center on our board? Okay. Let's call him Billy Price. And it seems like that's what happened with Titus Howard. Outside

of that though. So I hated what they did in the first round, the Texas, that was really poorly done. But after that, I thought they just destroyed it. I mean, they got several guys that I was, I was very, very high on like, you know, plant the flag kind of guys. So I love the rest of their draft. I just didn't like the first round. So that would be my rundown of the division. Yeah, as far as the AFC South goes, they definitely reloaded. And they're going to give the Colts a good run for their mind next year as far as the AFC South goes with everyone else really getting better throughout this draft class.

But, Thor, let's pivot over here to your biggest loser of the draft class. Who do you have as far as your top five for your biggest losers? So my two Fs were the Raiders and the Cowboys. Those two fan bases aren't very happy with me right now. I gave a D minus to the Dolphins, but I'll say my grades, I do not bake trades into them.

I think it gets too wonky. You know, you go down too many like alternate realities. You have to follow these trades back or whatever. For me, it's just about picks in the slot. You know, that's what my grades are. So the Josh Rosen thing, that's not involved in there. I'm just, you know, the picks that you're making with the slots that you have, are you getting value there?

Are you filling your needs, et cetera? With the picks the picks the dolphins made uh i didn't like them so you know i gave them a d minus and then uh i'm really sorry colts fans but moving up to a d my two d's were colts and giants let me ask you more about the colts then what stood out to you as far as why they deserve such a low grade you know this is this is this has something to do with the form of draft grades on their own is that of course my grades are based on my pre-draft work on these prospects and where i rank them right and so if a team just so happens to take let's say four or five guys that i happen to be lower on than the industry consensus. I am naturally going to grade that team lower. Now they, you know, Colts fans right out, say, you know, you idiot,

you think you're smarter than Ballard? No, I do not think I'm smarter than Ballard. I am not omniscient. I did do the work on the players though. I, you know, I went 500 deep in my rankings and I researched all of them watched all of them um and and just with my read on it in the pre-draft process I had a lot of the guys that the Colts picked lower for for you know for reasons that we can get into so it was solely about that although you know again I'll give another caveat I mean I am not smarter than Ballard again I say that. I hated the Darius Leonard pick last year. And it was about, I think it was mid-September when I, you know, I watched the Colts give it. I'm like, man, you dope. You missed that one pretty bad, didn't you?

And then in early October, I made amends for it where I found a prop where it was, I think I got three to one on Darius Leonard, a prop to win defensive rookie of the year. And so I figured that was my amends to the universe was by laying it on Darius that he cashed it out for me. So I appreciated that. Thanks, Darius. Hey, there you go. That definitely makes up for it there. So as far as we can go into more detail about the Colts picks, since you have them lower than consensus, who do you stand out to you as far as the lowest on your board that maybe the Colts reach for on your own personal one? For me, I would say probably Banagu. I think Banagu was a guy where I was just way lower on him than almost everybody else. I watch a lot of Big 12 football for work for folks out there.

I don't cover the NFL. I cover college football. It's what I do year round up until, you know, after the national title game through, you know, the middle of May or whatever, I'm NFL draft. And then I go back to college football and I specifically cover a lot of the big 12 and the big 10 and so I've I've watched those guys you know watched a crap ton of their games throughout their careers but Naga was a kid I was extremely excited about um you know heading into a couple years ago heading into like 2017 whatnot he he'd been a kid who was overlooked you know Texas kid

who'd been overlooked a toolsy kid um, by the way, in some ways, in terms of his recruiting process to Hakeem Butler, who happened to be in Texas, you know, during that time as well. Hakeem had moved from Baltimore down there, but he was another overlooked guy who had, you know, tremendous size and athleticism, but was just extremely raw. And so those big Texas programs overlooked him. Hakeem obviously ended up going to Iowa state and Banagu, he couldn't even get a P5 offer. So he had to go to UL Monroe. He dominated in year one. And then, you know, the, the schools around the country were like, oops, and Banagu wanted to stay home. So he, he went to TCU. His career was solid.

But for me, you know on you know when i was watching the games and stuff like that it never completely lived up to where i wanted it to be there are a few specific holes in his game and this is going to be very interesting for me you know as far as like evaluating because uh i'm always looking for where i made mistakes you know darius leonard that was uh that was an important lesson to me. And so there was, there was some, some rangy type linebackers in this class that I moved up merely because of that mistake, you know, where, you know, you're looking for some stuff like that. So I'm always, you know, looking to, to course correct and stuff like that. And, you know, maybe, maybe this is a case where, you know, I'm making the same mistake twice, you know, with, with, with Panago, but my issue with him is he's an, he's an edge defender who struggles very much

with power and he can get jarred off his path pretty easy too. It's not like you got to square him up to maul him down. You know, he's, he, you know, in terms of like contact balance and stuff like that off the edge, it's, it's just not the best. And so he was able to beat, you know, some of these mediocre, uh, big 12 tackles with speed, stuff like that off the edge. Um, but he struggled more when he was engaged. And, and so like for those reasons, um, I'm just a little bit lower on him. Also the, um, he's, you know, he's, he's sort of older as a, as a prospect. He, uh, he just turned 23 in January. So he's going to be 24 at the end of his rookie season. So for those reasons, I do have a bit of concern, but I also understand why people like him and why the Colts liked him. Obviously, the athleticism is insane. He's in the 97th percentile

of edge defenders at the Combine, led the big 12 and quarterback pressures last year was 60 had 28 run stops so he also led in that i don't think he's going to be a plus run defender in the nfl but he did do that you know and so there is a proof of concept on it you know at least as far as that goes to give the counterpoint um and he he was productive in college um yeah you know again but to go back to my issue i just wonder how that game is going to translate because for me you know it was he was very up and down at tcu he was inconsistent and he struggled with this one specific thing and in in college you'll see this you know every uh you know every year or so where you'll have these guys that can put up big time stats because they're

just longer and faster than everyone they're going up against. But once they have to engage and Benagou, he's not running around anyone in the NFL. It's not going to happen. So now he's going to have to be confronted with this big weakness of his. He can't just take it off the table by out-athleticing you. And so we'll see if he can do it. But that was my trepidation with Banagu. That's why I ended up dropping him beneath some other edge defenders where I'm more comfortable up the floor, basically. The risk profile for me was mitigated in these other situations. I'm curious to hear your thoughts about this,

Thor, because Chris Bowert said in his post-jab press conference that he was actually going to move Banagu from edge to sand. His range rangy speed reminded me a little bit of Jamie Collins what do you think about him as a linebacker okay that I think is brilliant I had not heard that before what's really funny about that is I considered move and in fact I believe in my first draft I actually ranked Banagou with the linebackers and I got on Twitter, I got some comments about like, why don't you have Banagu on edge? Why don't you have Banagu on edge? And, you know, the reason was because like Banagu was better in coverage, like in some of these other things, you know, that are more, you know, typically off ball type traits or whatever, than you would think. He was

better at the things that like people did not discuss than he was with the edge rushing thing. Like, you know, his edge rushing, his, the stats look great, but you gotta, you gotta understand, like Gary Patterson's one of the best defensive coaches in America. And he was sending Banago all the time, you know, putting them in the best spots, whatever they were trying to leverage his, his strengths against, you know, basically the, the opposing teams like slowest tackle off the edge there. So it's like, you know, you have a pitcher in college baseball that can throw 102 miles per hour well you're

never really going to develop his change up in his curveball or whatever because you can just blow it by everybody but yeah i i went through that thought experiment probably like in in mid march or something where it's just like is binagro actually an off-ball linebacker but just nobody realizes it? That is really interesting. Thanks for telling me that, because I did not know that anyone else in the NFL had that thought. And it's not surprising that it's Ballard. And it's also not surprising that he pushed him up for those reasons, because maybe some

of these other teams that were viewing him as a traditional edge had some of these same concerns that I did. How is Binagou going to beat some of these, you know, power tackles in the NFL that also can slide in front of him? It's just sort of hard to project. But, yeah, you weaponize his athleticism and his length out there where he can cover, he can run around, he can go sideline to sideline, stuff like that.

That might be a better use of his skill. So, yeah, that's pretty interesting. Let me ask you as well, Thor, about the first pick they had at pick 34. They moved back, still got their guy they coveted. Evan Silva mentioned he was the top cornerback on their board. Rocky Asin of Temple. Yeah, Rocky Asin is very interesting. He's another guy that I had just a bit lower.

I ranked him 49th overall. The Colts took him 34th. I'm not going to quibble with that at all. You know, that's, that's fine, you know, because he's, he's their guy. He's a better scheme fit. That's close enough for me in the range, right? I don't, I don't consider that a reach at all. The reason that I did have him a bit lower than some other folks is my passions with Rocky. So, you know, so just, I mean, I'm talking to a Colts audience, so you guys probably know all this, you know, by now, but you know I'm talking to a Colt audience, so you guys probably know all this, you know, by now.

But, you know, he, first three years of his career was at the D2 level. Then he transfers up as a grad to Temple. So he was only in, you know, the FBS for one season, and it was at the G5 level, you know, in the American conference where they didn't really face NFL receivers. And so Rocky is this guy, like, average athleticism average speed you know he's not not you know decidedly not top-notch and either but in the aac you know his game is based basically on physicality and man he roughed up some some receivers on the outside there at just a race people you know so you're just just utterly dominant uh He allowed a 53% completion rate last year, 62.1 passer rating when targeted.

I think, you know, people probably know this stat because it was one of the most sterling ones on his sheet. Didn't give up a single reception over 20 yards. But he was also rarely tested deep. There was only nine targets that ended up going that far. Zero completions again out of those um you know he led the aac and past breakups and stuff like that so he was extremely dominant my whole thing though is um you know and again you know ballard obviously has a has a

different idea on this you know than than i do and should probably be trusted more than me but you know when i think about Rakia, I think, you know, you were able to mug all these AAC receivers that did not have the athleticism to beat you deep, which is the one thing where when you're projecting Rakia, you're like, well, man, okay, so this guy is extremely raw, extremely raw. I mean, he needs technical refinement very bad. And then he also lacks that high-end athleticism. And you just start to wonder, like in college, there was no receiver that he was confronted with that could take advantage of those potential weaknesses. They could never sort of call him out on it. And so Rakia basically was just free to just do his mugging thing and just

play physical and knock these guys around or whatever, and no one could do anything against them. But I wonder if he is against one of those tall tree burners on the outside in the NFL, how he's going to handle that, because it's not just the deep speed thing, right? Like if, you know, once Rakia knows, oh man, okay, this guy across from me is bigger than, he's taller than me, he's bigger than me, and he's faster than me. Now Rakia, now he's got to play a little bit further back, right? can't play his whole game you can't try to press him whatever like he needs a little bit of he needs to compensate a little bit so he he doesn't get torched well then i get

concerned about if that stuff starts to happen i was already some of these aac receivers they could get him sort of like the way that i put it was sort of like rocking back like in a in a rocking chair some of the smaller like shiftier guys you know when he was in the intermediate area because again the footwork is not there yet and so like if if he has to start compensating for one of you know something like that um and all of a sudden they can start using the compensation against him as well um you know in the intermediate area too that my concern. Now, I still rated him as a mid-second round pick. It's not like I disliked him. In fact, I like him quite a lot.

You know, coaches fall in love with him. Everyone that went down to Mobile, you know, at the Senior Bowl, everyone fell in love with Rocky. Yeah, like just a great attitude, you know, competitor, everything like that, play style. You know, he's one of the few corners that your eye sort of gets drawn to him on the field because he's such a fighter um i just wonder about that translation and so you know for me it's very similar to binagu the the risk profile for me just ended up being higher uh than some other guys in the industry because of that i had to move a couple of corners

over him that i was more comfortable with because I thought, you know, that they were less risky selections. One more prospect I want to hit on with you, Thor, before I let you go, appreciate the time as always, is Paris Campbell of Ohio State. And I know Colts fans, I think this is the most excited pick the Colts fans have right now because they imagine him alongside a bunch of the Hilton and Eric Ebron, Jack Doyle, and imagine a lot of possibilities with a guy like Paris Campbell. What's your thoughts on him? Yeah, another one I was just a bit lower on. I had Paris 76 overall. He went with the 59th overall pick in the second round. Obviously, crazy athletic, you know, 99th percentile athleticism, you know, at 6'2", 05. You know, he's a well-built kid, too. So I understand all that. He's also an awesome kicker turner you know he was he was

one of the the big uh big times better kicker turners so and last year he went nuts you know 88 catches 1062 yards uh 12 touchdowns my issue with him is well it's a couple different things he can't catch balls downfield he made two catches in his over his entire career folks this wasn't last year this is over his entire time in Columbus he had two catches over his entire career, folks. This wasn't last year. This is over his entire time in Columbus. He had two catches over 20 yards downfield. For me, that's a little bit troubling. He also doesn't make contested catches. Over the last two seasons where he saw a ton of targets, keep in mind,

near 200 targets the last couple of seasons combined, he had nine contested catches and 17 opportunities for you know the speed guys in this class that was on the very bottom of of the spectrum so he's the way that i see him is it's sort of like in the nba with like a three-point specialist where uh paris cannot manufacture his own space the you know the touches and the space need to be manufactured for paris um if he gets both of them though you know if it is manufactured for him he can get on that runway and get into the end zone very quickly but he's you know I think because of those limitations he's a you

know a gadget type slot guy you know or it's a lot of like flat routes and stuff like that like it's a lot of stuff in the short area he's basically, you know, or it's a lot of like flat routes and stuff like that. Like, it's a lot of stuff in the short area. He's basically a, you know, more running back than receiver where but his handoffs have to come on on the perimeter. So you know, he you put them on the phylum of like, you know, Percy Harvin and Curtis Samuel and Tavon Austin, like, you know, guys like that or whatever. I think he's a bigger Curtis Samuel. So that's, that is worth something. You know, I, you know, again, I had him as like a, you know, a third round type guy or whatever, but there are other receivers in this class that could do more things.

And so for those reasons, that's why I put him down, just because I see him as more of like a gadget type guy. I'd be remiss not to ask you this question, Thor. Did you have EJ Spee in your top 500? Because I had no idea who that was when they drafted him. No, I did not. I think there was five guys that weren't. But it's funny because the name jogck something in my memory. And so I, you know, I looked him up and he was the kid that got arrested for the, the,

you know, the, the, the, I don't know if it was a syndicate or what, you know, whatever the heck the thing was, the charges were eventually dropped, but yeah, it was a, it was a strange pick because that's the, that's the kind of pick you make in the seventh round. You know, I don't know who, and who knows, maybe, maybe Ballard knows guys, maybe they knew of other teams that were sniffing around EJ speed in the sixth round. Certainly speed fits, you know, the Colts sort of prerogative.

I mean, Ballard loves to draft these sort of rangy athletic linebackers or whatever. So I, I, I understand the dart throw. It just seemed kind of odd when there was like a whole bunch of other guys on the board that had sort of proven track records and didn't have the risk profile on any metric. They hadn't been arrested for criminal activities, but also that they've proven the concept in the FBS and stuff like that, whereas DJ Speed hadn't. But as far as just the project, you're going to throw a dart on.

He is interesting. You know, he's a kid who was a former quarterback, former wide receiver. You know, he was very productive last year at Tarleton. So, you know, worth a dart throw, I suppose. For me, it's a little bit early, but, heck, it's late day three, and Ballard knows what he's doing, so why not? Thor, before I let you go here, one last question for you. What's your overall thoughts on the Colts and their draft strategy

the last two or three years under Chris Ballard? Man, you can't argue with it. That guy gets it done, and it's the kind of thing where, you know, I was afraid to give them, to give the Colts a D because Chris Ballard is so sharp and his team is so sharp. You know, you're sort of going against these guys who have proven to be the smartest guys in the room. But, you know, on the other hand, I'll say no team dominates every draft. They don't. And, you know, my, we have some analytical guys at work who have run some studies on this where It appears that the way that evaluators differentiate

themselves themselves from each other is in the first round and then the you know The the relative success of picks after that goes down where it becomes sort of statistically Insignificant and er um there can be you know you know front offices that you think are elite because they have a couple good draft classes out at the gate um tend to regress and and so you know i'm not saying that that's what's going to happen here but uh you know i i don't know i i didn't i didn't love having to grade them that low because you know they i i do think it's such a sharp organization and the Colts have a guy who's from my little hometown of Brainerd Minnesota and Joe Hague so I root for for the Colts anyhow but uh yeah we'll see how it goes they've certainly proven

the concept themselves hey Thor this is really fun I appreciate the time if you guys want to follow Thor on Twitter it's at ThorQ at T-H-O-R-K-U Thor appreciate the time thanks so much appreciate it